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Useful weekend
May. 28th, 2007 01:16 pmThis weekend, I (and many others: ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
naath, damerell, Jason, Ben-who-doesn't-climb, crazyscot, lnr and Mike, Sarah hazyjayne, Pete, probably some other people I've forgotten) helped move ceb and Ian the not-on-LJ, from the four-bedroom house that they had been living in since 1998 to a three-bedroom house a mile or so away.
Ten until eight on Saturday, packing and moving boxes, followed by a large (duck and more duck; Infinite Chinese Main-Dish Assortment; deep-fried battered apple bits covered in gorgeous hard sesame toffee) and vinous meal at the Hotpot, thenlnr's house-warming at which I fear I wasn't awake enough to be a worthy party contribution; then eleven until ten on Sunday, dismantling and moving furniture, followed by take-out pizza. The work-crew was about half a dozen, mutating slightly over the course of the weekend.
Compared to work, it was surprisingly relaxing: it's a task which splits into maybe three hundred individual components, each of which can be done in a few minutes and is then finished. There's some higher-level modularity as you figuring out what goes sensibly in each van-load; there are some bits for which you need to develop and refine a process and then carry it out repeatedly - getting the larger and more cumbersome double-beds down a rather narrow stairway with a ninety-degree bend in it, for example. There are various minor exercises of command as A instructs B and C in the movement of a wardrobe of monumental bulk and even more monumental height around a corner of distressingly inadequate radius.
But there's a very clear definition of the scope of the problem and of what constitutes success, there's an absolute guarantee that the problem is in fact solvable, the general methods that will solve it are well-understood, there's at least one useful trick to apply (I happened to have borrowed from the office a pallet-truck that makes moving white goods a straightforward exercise), and the degree of progress at any intermediate moment was clearly visible and clearly monotonically increasing. In none of these respects does it really resemble scientific research at all.
It is, however, good that today is a bank holiday which I can spend doing very little, slothfully.
naath, damerell, Jason, Ben-who-doesn't-climb, crazyscot, lnr and Mike, Sarah hazyjayne, Pete, probably some other people I've forgotten) helped move ceb and Ian the not-on-LJ, from the four-bedroom house that they had been living in since 1998 to a three-bedroom house a mile or so away.Ten until eight on Saturday, packing and moving boxes, followed by a large (duck and more duck; Infinite Chinese Main-Dish Assortment; deep-fried battered apple bits covered in gorgeous hard sesame toffee) and vinous meal at the Hotpot, then
lnr's house-warming at which I fear I wasn't awake enough to be a worthy party contribution; then eleven until ten on Sunday, dismantling and moving furniture, followed by take-out pizza. The work-crew was about half a dozen, mutating slightly over the course of the weekend.Compared to work, it was surprisingly relaxing: it's a task which splits into maybe three hundred individual components, each of which can be done in a few minutes and is then finished. There's some higher-level modularity as you figuring out what goes sensibly in each van-load; there are some bits for which you need to develop and refine a process and then carry it out repeatedly - getting the larger and more cumbersome double-beds down a rather narrow stairway with a ninety-degree bend in it, for example. There are various minor exercises of command as A instructs B and C in the movement of a wardrobe of monumental bulk and even more monumental height around a corner of distressingly inadequate radius.
But there's a very clear definition of the scope of the problem and of what constitutes success, there's an absolute guarantee that the problem is in fact solvable, the general methods that will solve it are well-understood, there's at least one useful trick to apply (I happened to have borrowed from the office a pallet-truck that makes moving white goods a straightforward exercise), and the degree of progress at any intermediate moment was clearly visible and clearly monotonically increasing. In none of these respects does it really resemble scientific research at all.
It is, however, good that today is a bank holiday which I can spend doing very little, slothfully.
